Days Septante Trois, Septante Quatre and Septante Cinq

One of the initial problems I had with the hotel I had in Stuttgart was that the curtains, they did nothing to block out the light. As a result, it was a night full of tossing and turning, sadly.

Breakfast was a little better than the sleep, thankfully. I pretty much passed over the meat and cheese that was composing the majority of the food choices and went for some toast with jam along with a hardboiled egg. Plus the best internet connection was in the breakfast room so I shot off some more emails at the same time.

I had, at this point, been nursing a bit of a cough and a cold, which I chalked up to my GO GO GO attitude towards the majority of the trip. I stopped into European grocery chain and legend from my Strasbourg days – Lidl – to get some orange juice and then ended up communicating in Spanish (?) at Shlecker to get cough syrup. Because, y’know, I can’t really read the German labels.

I decided it was time to go out for a walk, and after about an hour later I ended up at the tourist information booth to get information for the tram, and as well where to find a Deutsch Bank (no fees, thanks Scotiabank!). The Deutsch Bank was difficult to find until I turned the map upside down to coordinate where I was walking to. Then it was much easier.

The shopping in Stuttgart – well, downtown at least – is one large street, pedestrianized, which several little offshoots. I managed to find a couple of places that I wanted to go in and would have bought more than I did but the concept of using a VISA or Mastercard in most places seemed lost on these massive retailers (sarcasm mine). Apd apparently they're real big fans of Canadians.

I trudged back to the hotel as I figured I needed an afternoon nap.

And then I saw it.

There were handles on the side of the walls next to the windows. I look to the top of windows.

Blinds.

Sometimes, I’m really a dolt.

In fact, once I closed the blinds, it was pitch dark. As in you had no idea what time it was. Total sensory deprivation.

After that fine discovery, I spent the afternoon catching up on some emails, skyping (hey, it’s free, you can hardly blame me) and then popped down next door to Subway to get some dinner. Again, Spanish became the language of communication.

Finally, 6 pm arrived, it was off to see Wicked: Die Hexen Von Oz! I should preface that I went to the show, and yes it was German language, but I’ve seen the English language stage show twice and furthermore have listened to the CD hundreds of times, so I know what’s going on. The people at the tourist bureau will give you specified directions on how to get somewhere on the tram, thus after two trams I was at the complex.

And I say complex because it housed two massive theatres, shops, a casino, a hotel, etc. I first got into what I thought was the theatre and asked what was going on… a charity performance of We Will Rock You.

Hold on, I thought, that’s not what I signed up for! I was politely pointed to the theatre across the road to where Wicked was playing.

Upon entry to the theatre I went over and quickly grabbed a souvenir cd. I was really quite curious to have a copy of the foreign language show I was about to see.

The show itself was wonderful. I got goosebumps from the start – ended up being house left, on the aisle, row 14. No complaints. It was really interesting to listen to the lyrics and seeing the challenge of trying to fit German words into the original English lyrics but it came off quite nicely. I also thought this was much more difficult to perform due to the rigidness of the language as well – the lady who played Elphaba had a most difficult task.

After the show I took a minute to go and talk to the musical director/conductor. He spoke English and was nice enough to explain the difficulties of the score. I hopped a tram (and then a second) back to the hotel and got a much, MUCH nicer sleep.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I woke up at 8.30 am on Day Septante-Quatre. 8.30! For those of who know me personally, you know that’s a massive sleep in. Plus… 9 hours of sleep! I can’t remember the last time I did that well.

Breakfast, check. Pack my bags, check. Try to mail something awkward, not done, mostly because they didn’t have the right packaging at the DeutschPoste I went to. Oh well, I can mail it in France next week. Confirm reservation at DeutschBahn, check.

Food. It was 11.30 am and I figured I should pick up some lunch. After getting some pastries at the discount baker, a banana at the Chiquita fruit stand…

… and even a couple of postcards for souvenirs, I caved in and bought a cheeseburger at Burger King. Sometimes, dear readers, there are needs. I hadn’t had one in three weeks and didn’t think that made me too bad of a person.
The train, at least the first leg, was uneventful. So after a 30 minute stop over in Cologne, I was back on the next train. It turns out that while I had been lead to believe that I could travel into a country that wasn’t on my pass as long as I started in a country where I did.

Not so, the DB employee stated to me. He was just doing his job, although it was a kick in the teeth that I had to pay 23 Euros for the extra fare, and then move to second class! Hmm. Slightly frustrating.

Furthermore, I had been told by my friend Jeanette to get off at Brussels Centraal. And it turns out that this train was only going to Brussels Nord and Brussels Midi. So I got off at Brussels Nord, which turned out into an adventure unto itself, including a slightly bizarre two block walk with all of my luggage to make a connection.

I did, however, arrive at Jeanette’s place of work around 5 pm, a little harrowed from the journey, but happy that I was there. I hadn’t seen Jeanette since university, so that’s going on 8 years! We then walked to her house (as I didn’t really feel like chancing the metro again on this day). She’s got a really sweet pad, and after settling in we went to buy wine (it IS Europe, people), get some groceries and then head back to her place to make dinner.

Jeanette whipped up an AWESOME salad dressing, and along with my help and the assistance of one Dr. Oetker (he’s a personal friend of a lot of you, I imagine) dinner was ready. It was great to just sit and catch up with each other after all these years.

We then got ready to go out. One of Jeanette’s friends was celebrating her birthday, so we went out for beverages. While we were getting prepared, I threw on TF1 and watched a bit of Le Plus Grand Quiz de France. It’s sort of like American Idol meets Trivial Pursuit(the board game, NOT "America Plays"). Get 10 questions in a row right, you get to advance to the semi-finals to compete head to head.

Oh, and did I mention that they give you all of the questions and answers beforehand? All fifteen thousand of them. Apparently the British version was over 200,000…

We had a nice night out that was only marred by some shoddy service. It was a cool spot though, and it was neat meeting Jeanette’s circle of friends who probably are the most internationally diverse I’ve seen since leaving university.

Seeing as that we got home pretty late, sleep wasn’t the first thing I had on day Septante-Cinq . However I did get some good rest and around 11 am Jeanette and I headed out with her playing tour guide and me playing tourist.

One of the nice things that happens when you have someone local on your side is that they can show you all the nooks and crannies. Jeanette did an excellent job, showing me sights such as Grand Sablon, Petit Sablon, le Parc Central among others. We went into her favourite church as well as seeing a make shift Chinese tea room as part of a Euro-China partnership.

Jeanette had mentioned a chip stand named Frites-Flagey that was known to served very good fries – the Belgian way. I then got a bit more than I bargained for.
It turns out that the owner of the Frites-Flagey was a bit on edge. Someone wondered if their fries were done yet, and that just sent him into a tailspin. Ever seen that episode of Seinfeld where if the soup guy doesn’t like you, you don’t get any soup? That was EXACTLY THIS. I kid you not. After this first initial altercation, he yelled that if anyone else had a problem, that they should just leave.

Jeanette managed to order our fries, and while we were waiting, someone started a conversation with “My kind sir” which set of FF guy again… with the best quote so far… I’m in charge, you’re not, get out! (slightly paraphrased, but you get the idea). It was truly an exercise in seeing true Belgian customer service.

I’m told the Better Business Bureau doesn’t really exist in Belgium… and I can tell why!

We got back to Jeanette’s just in time for me to grab my dive gear and hop a metro/tram to the end of line 4 to get to Nemo 33!

Nemo 33, as most of you probably don’t know, is the world’s deepest diving pool. I say diving because yes, although you could swim in it, that’s not really why it exists. Through a back and forth email I was able to book a divemaster for a one hour session. I could have just shown up, however as I’ve seen on many a dive vacation (ok, two), it’s very much hit and miss what kind of diver quality you get. So for an extra fee, I rented one. As it turned out, someone else wanted one as well, so we split on the cost, which made it just that much more enjoyable!

I got to Nemo shortly after 4 for a 5 pm session, which actually turned out to be nice, as I could just watch the world go by. There are windows where those in the restaurant can see the divers, and vice versa. It’s pretty neat, especially for those who don’t dive (AND WHY NOT???) as they can sit on the dry side and watch their friends and family.
At 4.45 pm I was let into the changing area. As it turned out there was only me, two other divers and a dive master in this slot… and apart from the classes that were being run in the first 10 feet of depth, we had the run of the pool! Talk about lucky.
Just before 5 pm you get let into the pool. We met Didier, our divemaster (for hire) for this session. Instantly I felt comfortable as we started joking around… I could tell he enjoyed what he does! The first eight to ten minutes are reserved for “apnee” (free diving)… just so you can get used to the initial surroundings. Which is a good thing, because the temperature of the water is a bit shocking.

A shockingly high 90 degrees Farenheit.

Yep, you read that right. Plus it’s spa water… no chlorine. And you can’t take your own gear in, save for masks, computers (a necessity at the depth) and cameras. No wetsuits allowed – unless you shell out to rent one. Having rented my fair share of wetsuits in my time and knowing where they’ve probably been… I took a pass.

After the freediving session it was time to kit up. Now, although you pay for the use of the equipment and the pool, you still have to put it together. Not a problem for yours truly. Once Didier and I, along with Jean-Louis and the other gentleman (whose name sadly I’ve forgotten and is illegible on my dive log) were ready to go, we headed down.

It does take some getting used to… the warm pool water that is. I had been nursing on and off a bit of a sniffle for a few days so I was extremely concerned that I wouldn’t be able to go deep… thankfully not a problem! We started by going down to about 15 feet to start, then headed down a secondary well to 30 feet. In between the wells there are two grottos where you can go in, take a breather (HA!) and talk. It’s really weird though, because you get in, you start talking and because you’re 30 feet below the surface, you sound like a chipmunk. I’ve got a sound file that I’ll eventually get around to posting.

It was then time to head down the big well.

I had seen videos on youtube detailing this experience, but it was so wonderful to freefall – in a matter of speaking – down to the bottom of this very deep well, which bottoms out at 33 metres, or as my computer told me, 111 feet.
We got to spend about 7 or 8 minutes at the bottom. It was absolutely a blast, as I just started snapping pictures of my computer (to prove that I went to this depth!) and it was fun to realize that it truly was as warm as it was in the pool. Didier took a minute to take a picture of me at depth – I photoshopped it a bit but you get the idea!

Near the end of our time at the 111 foot mark, my computer started blinking. While you are taught to dive your tables – and you always should – your computer is a nice little tool to have underwater as well. I don’ think I’ve ever gotten down to only 2 minutes to go before decompression stops would set in (and trust me, you don’t want that) so it was time for all of us to head up.
We stopped and sat at 60 feet to off gas some of our collective nitrogen and I got a quick shot with Jean-Louis.

After the stop at 60 feet we moved up to 30 feet and visited the other grotto just to have a quick chat. I started singing and all Didier said was “Canadians!”

Finally it was time to surface. All in all a phenomenal experience! I do hope to go back at one point, and I know if I lived near it that I would probably spend a good chunk of my paycheque there now and then.
After drying off and changing, Jean-Louis, the mystery gentleman and I signed each other’s logs and said our goodbyes. The only thing that Nemo 33 is missing are souvenirs! I did manage to grab a couple of the placemats from the restaurant.
I got back to Jeanette’s around 7.30 pm and once she arrived back from the gym, we got some dinner and then I hit the hay. Such a busy day… but it continues to be such a fun vacation!
Cheers,
Vick.